Green business in 2011: More firms now take a longer view

Big businesses are focused more and more on cutting their carbon footprint, making packaging from renewable sources and eliminating waste in their production processes.

The State of Green Business 2011 report, released Tuesday, notes that despite the political challenge of dealing with environmental issues, attitudes in the business world toward the environment are becoming more focused on long-term sustainability.

In 2010, climate change fell off the map as a political issue, and concern about the environmental issues as concern about the economy dominated, writes Joel Makower of GreenBiz.Com Tuesday as he released the annual State of Green Business 2011 report.

“ ‘Saving the earth’ has taken a back seat to simply saving the day,” Makower says on his Two Steps Forward blog. “The politics of the moment seem to have made clean air, clean water, biodiversity, and planetary survival a controversial thing — something we can afford only in ‘good times.’ ”

But green business is catching on, particularly among large multinational corporations, according to Makower.

“It's hard to find a big company these days that isn't engaged in environmental issues in a meaningful way. Indeed, a dramatic shift is occurring in business: Companies are thinking bigger and longer term about sustainability — a sea change from their otherwise notoriously incremental, short-term mindset,” he says. “And even during these challenging economic times, many have doubled down on their sustainability activities and commitments.”

A key sector leading the growth: consumer products companies like Kraft, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and S.C. Johnson of Racine.

“During 2010, we saw a steady march of progress, with some of the world’s biggest companies and brands putting a stake in the ground in the name of environmental (and sometimes social) sustainability,” the report concludes

“Some are companies that hadn’t previously been visible in these ways. Others, it turned out, had been quietly taking action, walking more than talking, only recently discovering that modesty is no longer an asset in a world that increasingly demands transparency. Still others have only recently elevated sustainability to a level of importance, hiring their first senior executives to oversee and coordinate sustainability commitments and goals.”

But the report takes business to task for moving slowly on a number of fronts, including carbon intensity, e-waste and a shift to organic agriculture.

"On many of our indicators there was only a hint of progress, far too little to make a difference," Makower says.

About Thomas Content

Thomas Content covers energy, clean technology and sustainable business. A series he co-wrote on energy and climate change won top honors in 2008 from the National Press Foundation.

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